High School Pictures
by goldenslider
Summary: Memories of Troy flood back to Ryan when he looks for a photo from his time at school. Possible Ryan/Troy.
1. Chapter 1

This weird story came to me as I was looking for a couple of photos of me and my cousins when we were younger. I don't really know the whole point of the story, even after re-reading it a few times, but it made sense in my head as I was writing it. If anyone can come up with a good point of the story, let me know.

And I know the last story I wrote hasn't been touched since before christmas. It hasn't been forgotten, I've just been working on finishing one of the stories I started last August. Once that's done, Therapy should be next on my list.

Enjoy

* * *

I'm really camera shy.

Strange thing for a guy like me, someone who likes to have people's attention focused entirely on him while I'm on stage.

It always seemed that whenever someone took a photo of me, they'd get me in an unflattering position. I'd have my mouth half open, or I would be looking off to one side, which would make me look totally wacko.

Sometimes, the pictures of me make my eyes look so bloodshot, and are usually taken when my hair is just that bit more messed up than usual.

Pictures when I'm on my own are total crap.

On the other hand, all the pictures I have with Troy and me, I look amazing in. It's not because standing next to Troy makes me look good on principal. I'm not sure why that is, it's something I'll never work out.

Course, Troy being hot isn't exactly what I am thinking about right now. I'm sitting on my bed, cross-legged, pictures covering not just my lap, but almost the entire length of the bed.

When I brought out the junk box tonight I was looking for this best picture I have of Troy, but for the life of me I can't find it in this box.

I remember it like it was yesterday, and yes I know how corny that sounds. It was taken the opening night of the Twinkle Town musical, well over seven years ago now. It was the first time we'd ever performed on stage together – it was his first time performing on stage – and it was the first time in my whole life that I was able to fulfil one of my wishes, and have Troy Bolton hug me.

Yes, it just a friendly hug, of two people who had just performed on stage and were on a high after such an outstanding performance. I mean, Gabriella and Sharpay got a photo taken in exactly the same pose, and that doesn't really mean anything, does it?

I need to see that photo again.

It was the first time Troy had died his hair, for his part as Nicky in the musical. His normal brown hair was pure black when he came in to the dressing room before the show. I remember just standing there, as both Gabriella and Sharpay fawned over the new look, me quietly taking in the hot new image of him.

So in this photo, when he hugs me, theres me with my bright blonde hair, and him with his deep dark hair, a pure contrast that looked amazing when the photo was developed.

But what was better, was the way his face was slightly scrunched up from the bright flash a half-second before the picture was taken, just enough to make it looked like he had a big smile on his face. I think that's why I love that picture so much, because it's the only one I have of him where it looks like he's smiling.

My sister, Sharpay, took that picture.

To be honest, I think she took most of the photos that I'm searching through right now.

She was only eleven minutes older than me, but you would think by her remarkable talent – the proof of which is covering my bed right this moment – that she was a lot older.

She had such inspiration to become a professional photographer, that when she decided that being on stage ultimately wasn't what she wanted to do, we all knew that she would have no problems starting her own photography business.

Did okay at first. After a year or so she ended up getting a job working for some big name people, would call me on the phone every Friday night to say that the people in New York didn't care exactly how old you were as long you had 'talent'.

But her boyfriend – or fiancé really at the time, although why she would agree to marry him I'll never understand – had a problem with drugs, and it was hard to keep him under control. When she tried leaving him, he hit her over the head with a glass vase.

I don't think he really meant to kill her.

After Shar died, who did I have left? Dad was always away on business trips, and Mom threw herself head first into her work with such ferociousness that for a long time it seemed like she forgot she had another kid, one who was trying to cope with the death of his twin sister. Dad left her after a while, and I never really saw him much after that.

So by the age of 20, I was alone.

But then I had Troy. He was the shoulder that let me cry on, would never tell me that things would get better or would fade away as I grew up – he knew I hated being told all that stuff at Shar's funeral. He would just sit there, being Troy-like.

I think that was around the time I fell in love with him.

I mean, yeah I'd fancied him at school and that, but I was just a kid back then, who really didn't know what love was.

But it was halfway through the second year at college. It was just him and me watching the wrestling on the telly, food and drinks scattered on the table, and crumbs everywhere.

He'd made some daft comment about being much better than The Rock, and proceeded to show me a half-assed attempt at The Rock's eyebrow. I said he was crazy, and he started wrestling with me, and we knocked the food off it's plates and spilt some juice, and he had me pinned to the floor but yep, you guessed it, I pressed my lips up against his.

Afterwards, when we were both trying to avoid looking at each other as we awkwardly put on our clothes, I did the one thing I knew best how to do.

I laughed it off as a male sexual tension-type thing.

Everything would have been alright, if I hadn't seen the look on his face, sort of a cross between god honest relief, and an 'I just slept with you and now you're breaking my heart' kind of look.

But no matter what I said that night, less than a week later Troy found himself back on my lips and back in my bed.

I don't think I ever felt more comfortable with my life than I did when I was laying pressed up against Troy's naked back.

But that's not the story of my life, oh how there is much more.

The story goes like this: I'm a fuck-up. A total one at that.

Just like school, just like my (non)relationship with my mother and my sorry attempt to deal with the death of my sister, I fucked up the thing that I had with Troy.

That second time, I blew him off as another mistake, a reckless error on my part, and as a result lost him to someone that he had a chance at a normal relationship with.

So why am I doing this? Why am I sitting in a pile of pictures of me and Troy that my dead sister took years ago and feeling sorry for myself?

Because about six hours ago, I got a visit from an old friend. She showed up on my doorstep, the first time I've seen or spoke to her in nearly three months.

Gabriella Montez, who had disappeared from Albuquerque not long after high school to attend a university in San Francisco, a place she got thanks to my dad, told me of the most awful news I never wanted to hear in my life.

Her and Troy were getting married.

I'd only seen Troy once since that night – the second time that I told him it was a mistake, and he walked out of the apartment minutes later, half dressed.

Now he has someone that can make him feel wanted, loved, someone who can appreciate him in a way that I couldn't.

Someone who isn't afraid to tell him they love him.

You know, it occurs to me now where that picture is.

I remember now. Troy came back a month or so after he walked out. He asked me if he could have it. He never said anything about why he wanted it, but I felt such bitterness towards him that he could take it away from me, I handed it to him without even blinking. I knew for sure it was gonna end up being framed and stuck up on a night stand somewhere in whose-ever place of someone he loves more than me.

Hearing him say that, just before he walked away that month before, it killed me.

Yeah, I loved him, but I couldn't say it back. I hated myself, I still do, and for days afterwards I was so tempted to ring him or text him and apologise. But it never happened, and when he came over and took that picture away from me, I knew I had to let him go.

Even with the box full of pictures I have of him, I'll never have one that shows the Troy I remember the most fondly.

The Troy that was mine and belonged to me and only me.

I'm a selfish bastard really.

I couldn't share him with anyone then and I won't give myself the pleasure of sharing him now. He belongs to her now and, well, I guess I'll always belong to someone that doesn't love me.


	2. Chapter 2

We've had Ryan's pov, now let's hear Troy's. It may seem like some bits are the same from Ryan's version, and some lines were reused again intentionally to show the similarities between the way both Ryan and Troy think.

* * *

I love getting my picture taken.

It's strange. Whenever I see a camera, I just have to pull a pose. Sometimes I'd put the cheesiest grin on my face and have my tongue half out, or sometimes I'd put on this serious look and stand with my arms folded across my chest, and half turn my body so my legs are facing the other way.

Sometimes, the pictures of me make my eyes look so bloodshot, and are usually taken when my hair is just that bit more messed up than usual, but that doesn't really bother me. I like every picture to be different.

Or as different as possible with the moves and poses I do.

Pictures when I'm on my own are the best.

On the other hand, I find it a bit weird when I'm in a photo with someone else. It's not that I don't mind sharing the photo with another person, it's just they can't always pull a great pose like I can.

But there's this one picture I've had taken with someone else I just look amazing in. But then that's because of the person who was in it with me. It was the first, but not the last, photo of me and a talented young git by the name of Ryan Evans.

I remember it like it was yesterday, and yes I know how corny that sounds.

Sharpay had her camera with her on the opening night of the Twinkle Town musical, so many years ago now. It was the first time I'd ever performed on stage in a proper musical production, and the first time in my whole life that I was able to fulfil one of my wishes, and have Ryan Evans hug me.

Yes, it just a friendly hug, of two people who had just performed on stage and were on a high after such an outstanding performance. I mean, Gabriella and Sharpay got a photo taken in exactly the same pose, and that doesn't really mean anything, does it?

I need to see that photo again.

In the photo, when he hugs me, there's me with my newly coloured deep dark hair, and him with his pure blonde hair, a complete contrast that looked so fantastic when Sharpay had the photo developed.

But what was better, was the way his face was at the perfect angle to capture what looked like a golden smile, his lips reflecting the light from the stage lamps above us. I think that's why I loved that picture so much, it's the only one I cam remember him ever really smiling in.

And knowing that smile was for me, well, I don't really know what to say to that.

Everytime I was over at his, I'd try to get that picture. But Sharpay didn't keep the negatives, and with her preferring to use an old fashioned spool camera compared to the new digital multi extravagant one belonging to her father she could have used, Ryan had the only copy in existence.

I shouldn't put Shar down like that, after all, she did become a big name in photography in New York.

But then, her untimely death put a stop to that. That's another reason why I won't ever touch drugs. I could never live with myself if I'd killed someone just because I needed a fix.

It hit Ryan the hardest, and for a time, it looked like he was about to self-destruct because of it. His parents seemed to forget he was there, his college work suffered, and I really thought he would have killed himself if I hadn't been around.

I looked after him the way I always wanted. I let him cry on my shoulder, I let him hug me if he needed someone to hold; I was the perfect boyfriend, without the actual boyfriend part, if that makes sense.

I fell more in love with him then than I ever thought I could.

I mean, yeah I'd fancied him at school and that, but I was just a kid back then, who really didn't know what love was.

But it was halfway through our second year at college when it finally happened. It was just him and me, relaxing after a boring week of classes. As usual for a Friday night I was over at his dorm room, watching wrestling on the telly, pigging out on food and crisps, having a laugh like we always had.

I'd made a stupid comment about how I could be much better than The Rock, and attempted to perform The Rock's eyebrow. I failed miserably, and Ryan said I was crazy, so I jumped on playfully and started wrestling with him, and we knocked the food off it's plates and spilt some juice, and I had me pinned to the floor but no, you never would have guessed it, he pressed his lips up against mine.

It was like everything that I wanted to happen actually did happen. But an hour later, when we were both trying to get dressed again, he avoided looking at me.

And he started laughing quietly, saying that it was just his frustration of being alone, the anniversary of his sister's death coming up, and having a bit too much to drink – even though we hadn't actually touched the still full beer cans that were sitting on the table.

I knew I had this horrible expression on my face, a sort of cross between relief and 'you just slept with me and now you're ditching me like a one-night-stand' kind of look.

But even after he stayed out of my way most of the week, the next Thursday night, the year to the day his sister died, he phoned me up asking if I could come over, and I was in his bed before the clock struck twelve.

But he blew me off again, causing me to walk out on him half dressed after having humiliated myself by saying those god awful – but truthful – words. I loved him, I really did and I thought for sure that now after the second time in a week of sleeping together he would have felt the same, but when he said it was a mistake, it killed me.

So now after two months, I haven't seen or spoke to him – except once which I'm coming to. I thought about texting him, or phoning him just to see how he was, but I was too chicken. I didn't want to cause anymore problems for him.

But I couldn't keep away from him, no matter how many times he blanked me in the corridors at college, or walked the other way when he saw me coming. A month after it all happened, I went back to his. I asked him if I could have the photo of us together way back when things were alright between us and it was just a hopeless crush on my part.

I didn't tell him why I wanted it. I had a whole story made up in my head about how my gran wanted it to show off her 'talented granson' on his opening night at the high school play, stupid yeah, but I could never tell him the truth, that I wanted the photo because I was so much in love with him it hurt and that photo was the first time I was able to hold him in my arms. Sad, yeah I know.

I thought he would have protested about me taking away his picture, I mean I didn't expect him to give it up. I thought it would have opened him up to talking to me again, even if it was just him saying no to the picture, then we could have discussed why I wanted it, and hopefully talk like we used to, but a few seconds after he walked away from the door, he was back with the photo in his hands and handed it to me without glancing up.

So two months later, I think of the perfect plan for him to finally reveal that he loves me too. In hindsight though, it made things worse.

I got Gabriella over, who was on a break from her university course and back in town, and I told her everything about me and Ryan. And she agreed to help me.

It was her who came up with the whole us getting married thing, because she was sure that Ryan would have got in touch with me to ask why I, who was clearly out and gay, was gonna marry a girl.

But he never did call.

Gabriella's spoken to him a few times, and invited him over to 'ours' for dinner, but each time, he politely rejected the offer. Each time she came back to mine to tell me how the talk with him went, each time she said the same thing: she was worried about him.

He never talked to her about what happened with me and him, every time she would drop a hint that she knew something happened, he would change the subject or claim that we weren't talking because we fell out over something stupid.

So now I'm not quite sure what to do. The Ryan I used to know and love won't talk to me, and in it's place is a Ryan who has become more and more withdrawn, not his usual perky self, according to his drama classmates, and from what Gabriella says, more depressed than ever.

I've tried calling his mobile a lot the last week or so, but every time it goes straight to voicemail, and there is no way I can cope with leaving a message on that, cos I know that as soon as he hears my voice on the recording, he'd delete it without listening.

So that's why I'm outside his door, at half eleven on this Thursday night, the photo of me and him in my hands, terrified to knock on the door. I have no idea what to say if he does answer the door, and I have no idea what to expect him to do if he does. Would he ignore me? Slam the door in my face? Tell me to eff off?

He opens it a few seconds after I tap, and I just stand there like a deer in headlights. Okay, I don't know where that expression came from, and I'm sure a deer would actually run rather than get smacked by the car, but the expression seemed to hold true at that moment.

He stands there, expecting, waiting on me to say something. I just hand over the photo, and not knowing what else to do, I turn and start to walk away. He stops me before I can though, and asks me if I want to come in.

I ask him if we can talk, and he smiles slightly before walking in.

That night, for the first time, as we lay there, bodies tied together, after everything between us had been laid bare, in more ways than one, he said those three words to me.

That's all I ever wanted to hear.


End file.
